Conference Raises Awareness Of Nature

WAKEFIELD — As a government teacher several years ago, Keith Buttleman enraged his principal by helping students dump garbage on the school lawn to make a point about the state of the environment.

Today, as administrator of Virginia's Council on the Environment, Buttleman is concerned that the point still must be made.

Developing a public awareness of environmental issues "is the only real hope for the future," Buttleman said Friday at the start of a three-day environmental education conference at the Airfield Conference Center.

Part of the conference is focusing on how best to educate the public on environmental issues, while workshops offer educators a chance to learn successful environmental programs they can use in their classrooms. Participants also are brushing up on current issues during panel discussions. While the emphasis of the conference is on developing a public environmental awareness, discussions during some of the panel sessions Friday centered on education in schools.

Although Virginia's education standards encourage environmental studies, the state has no set curriculum and no way of gauging how much students are taught about the environment, Buttleman said.

"I'd like to see a lot more environmental education in the curriculum," at all grade levels and in subjects other than just science, Buttleman said.

Some teachers complain, however, that, although they want to teach about the environment, other subjects consume most of their time, Buttleman added.

But there are signs that environmental issues are reaching young people.

One educator said she knew of two 9-year-old girls who refused to go to a restaurant when they found out that South American beef was on the menu. They had heard that South American rain forests were being burned to provide grazing land for cattle. Scientists fear that the burning might accelerate the "greenhouse effect" that some believe is increasing the Earth's temperature.

Some educators who talked Friday fear that students might be too removed from nature to care about their impact on it.

Agreeing with a magazine article by baseball great Ted Williams, Cynthia DeCanio, environmental educator with the Piedmont Environmental Council, said today's youth might be the first generation to grow up without "bonding" with nature.

DeCanio fondly recalled days as a youngster running with friends through neighborhood woods after school. But today's parents are concerned with mounting crime and shelter their children more than their parents did, she said. As result children sometimes grow up without an appreciation for nature.

"Why bother with the environment when they grow up?" she said. "If someone says `Hey, I'm having a problem with some toxic waste over here,' they'll say `So, I'm going to the mall.'"

DeCanio encouraged the development of environmental education programs that include day camps for students so they can get close to nature.

As far as programs in other states, some educators pointed to Wisconsin as having a good emphasis on environmental education. In that state all teachers must complete an environmental education course.

Nationwide, an environmental education network was launched in November with four regional centers that offer teacher training, educational materials and community workshops, said Steve Kussmann, president of the organization called Alliance for Environmental Education.

Kussman said the group hopes to eventually have 100 centers nationwide, many of them located in universities and colleges. He said he has talked to Virginia officials but no site has been offered.

Also, there is a bill before Congress that calls for an office of environmental education at the Environmental Protection Agency, said Bonnie Smith, director of the Center for Environmental Learning at the EPA's regional office in Philadelphia.

But Smith and other officials urged conference participants to start or continue grassroots efforts to educate people about environmental issues without waiting for the government.

"The very basic idea is not to wait for this Senate bill that may or may not happen," she said.